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Berlin: Before And After The Wall

Photographer Jim Abbott has opened a new exhibition that juxtaposes photos of Berlin before and after the fall of the Berlin wall.

"Berlin: Landscape of Memory" shows the stark contrast between the days when the communist wall separated the free from the oppressed. In an interview with Reason, Abbott describes the exhibit and explores how Berliners remember the wall and communist East Germany.

He even comments on the reaction many younger people have to the wall. "It was hard for some of my students, to wrap their brains around the fact that a Western society, people who looked just like them, lived like this. And it was not too long ago," Mr. Abbot said.

The wall was, and its memory remains, the perfect example of the contrast between free capitalist societies and oppressive communist ones.